Friendly Share: Guides, guides, guides!

Once again, I apologize for disappearing like that. I’m in the middle of moving right now and, as usual, I haven’t been able to get a working computer/laptop but hopefully it can work out this time. Let’s cross our fingers! However, because of everything that’s happened during my monthly blackout, I’m going to try to condense and contain my excitement for at least one post a day this week until especially a major post of Strapya Weekly. I’m excited! So let’s get through one day at a time!

Anyway, throughout my monthly blackout, a friend of mine, クロエ (or Chloe), had written up a few guides about what certain Gyaru are as an original piece in the JPOP gossip LiveJournal community, aramatheydidnt. To be fair, there’s not really a whole lot of Gyarus around these days or at least the ones who are passionate about the Gyaru culture as, at least I want to think, I am. Because of that, there seems to be Gyarus questioning more and more: “What does it mean to be Gyaru anymore?”

Thankfully, Chloe explains the Gyaru history a little bit better than I could as well as the sub-styles in only two guides as of this post. In Arama Original: All About Gyaru (Part One), Chloe explains the history of some of the sub-cultures and even go as far as to explain to how the came came to be. A lot of the sub styles are very small but that’s because the group itself could be very small. Like with the J-Cholas? There’s a reason why it’s probably not on this particular guide. There are plenty pictures, or as many pictures as Chloe tried to find on the sub-style, to look at to see what the style is seen as.

In the second one, also named Arama Original: All About Gyaru (Part Two), Chloe talks about the celebrities that came from Gyaru, went to inspire Gyaru, or both. Notable celebrities that garner my attention are Koda Kumi, Namie Amuro, Suzuki Emi, Itano Tomomi, and of course sifow and Masuwaka Tsubasa. She goes on, again, with some brief history of the major celebrities and a little bit about the lesser known but she doesn’t do it for all of them. Pretty understandable though there are character limits on Livejournal and talking about every one gets tedious (having nightmares about my top 10 list…).

One thing I really liked about this next guide is that Chloe managed to do some research about this style. I was pretty curious about it myself but it’s sort of limited since a lot of people don’t really know what it is. Is it lolita? Would it be considered lolita? From my experience, a lot of lolitas use this style a lot because they just really like Hello Kitty, My Little Pony (the old and the new shows), or any other girly show or merchandise ploy. There’s a lot of gothic versions on Tumblr, as you would expect from Tumblr. But you also have girls who aren’t gothic and who are girly and incorperate into their fashion as well. And then there are people who might mistake it for Harajuku style. This begs the question:

Fairy-kei is a style that we can say plays on our nostalgia today. It heavily takes inspiration from American pop culture of the 80s and early 90s. One of the other defining factors of fairy-kei is the array of colors. The colors usually stay on the side of pastels and bright fluorescents. It is a very colourful and whimsical style of dress with very poppy-cute elements. Just looking at it could give you a cavity. According to the fairykei community on livejournal: “This fashion is pretty open to interpretation so long as one sticks to the color scheme of pastels and neons, as well as creating that unicorn-inspired 80s fairy feeling. It can easily be combined with other fashions such as lolita or decora.”

So it really is whatever you want it to be. Okay. Now that we got that out of way, what else does this guide have in store for us?

Naturally, there are examples of Fairy Kei, as well as some brief history and some brand suggestions. It’s probably the most informed guide I’ve seen (although if there are other English guides, I’d more than happy to be linked to them) as well as examples of what is considered Fairy Kei and answers some of my questions. Where did it come from? What makes Fairy Kei stand out? And much more.

This post was mainly to show off these guides that Chloe made to help inform the Gyaru community and possibly reinspire someone to create their own fashion! After all, I’m still on my journey to create the Urban-Chan – I need as much inspiration as I can get as well as the right resources to research properly about that subject.

Now that I understand what Fairy Kei is, I can go ahead and look at those brands whenever I do some browsing online for the cute side of Urban-Chan (particularly hair styles and accessories) but Urban? Perhaps I may have to do more digging than just Japanese fashion, huh? What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment!

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This blog will contain reviews, gossip about Japanese & Korean celebrities, and my journey to become an Urban-Chan: someone who's into the urban style but who want to keep the frills and cute things. Feel free to contact me about anything!

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